


Green Grass and High Tides (As Far As the Eye Can See)

by airedis



Category: SHINee
Genre: Friendship, M/M, Slice of Life, Summer Love, i mean - that's really what this whole thing is, love at the beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-13 23:56:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7991041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airedis/pseuds/airedis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A summer in snapshots</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> written for shineebigbang 2016 and originally posted [here](http://shineebigbang.livejournal.com/63557.html). i swear every sbb is a new way to challenge myself lmao ᕦ(⊙෴⊙)ᕤ and as someone in the comments of the orig post guessed, there's a scene here based off [these gifs](http://highdowns.tumblr.com/post/125495900035/minho-and-taemin-running-in-the-rain) and also [this twitter post](https://twitter.com/sullaem/status/736800923742142464) pretty much kicked off the entire idea to start with \o/

The sand is the soft, fine kind that feels smooth and warm against his feet – not the gritty kind like from the beach closest to his city. That’s essentially pieces of glorified rock, Minho thinks as he slips off his sandals and shuffles closer to the path down to the water. Even up here, before he is on the beach proper, he can feel the sand sliding underneath the soles of his feet. Minho steps closer.

A shout from across the road draws Minho’s attention and he turns back to where his brother is waving at him, gesturing toward the rest of their family’s luggage piled in the trunk of the car. With a sigh, Minho tosses his shoes to the ground and slides his feet inside, still feeling some of the sand trapped against his skin. He crosses the road and helps his father pull a large box out of the car.

Summer has started.

-

The first time Minho had ever felt the ocean lapping at his feet was when he was six years old. By now he can’t remember how much of the trip was actual memory and how much he’d fabricated in his mind over the years, but he knows that the water was cold and he knows that his clothes had gotten wet when Minseok had pushed him into the waves. Their mom had yelled at Minseok and Minho might have cried – that part’s fuzzy, he’d mumble to himself – and they’d all gotten churros later that night on the boardwalk before the long drive home.

They have no pictures from that day, no video recordings or even that many stories to tell. Minho’s not entirely sure his parents would remember the trip unless he brought it up to them; he mentioned it to Minseok once, who leaned past the edge of the bed and looked up at Minho, staring down from the top bunk, before chucking a sock up at his younger brother.

“How do you even remember that?” he’d asked with a laugh. And then he’d turned back to his game and Minho turned back to the ceiling, a book resting on his chest.

That was when they used to share a room. Minho loves his brother but much prefers it this way now.

The whole day had been a blur of childlike wonder and the fantasy of some place exciting and new, and sometimes Minho thinks about it, a fleeting thought passing through his head as he recalls childhood or the shock of how cold water can really be. He’s been to the beach a handful of times since then, with friends who shove at each other and drink too much caffeine, feet coated in wet sand and a volley ball net strung up a few feet away, and with a girl whose hand he’d held as the sun dipped into the water beside them. She’d clutched at his jacket around her shoulders and turned away as he’d tried to kiss her.

Minho can’t imagine the beach without the stained glass collage of memories scattered about the waves or the feel of ice cream coated sticky fingers and the sun on his bare back. Maybe one day he’d move out by the ocean and let the pressure of finding a good job, of paying off his car, of not disappointing his father fade into the background. He’d let it all recede into the ocean like an abandoned shoe and maybe he’d learn how to surf or paddle board or waterski. Yeah, Minho would live on a house on a cliff and he’d be able to see the sea every day of his life.

He’d always wanted to be a pirate when he was younger after all.

-

The house is a pretty one with a stone path to the front door and large windows looking out over the ocean. Minho drops his bags in the room he’d be sharing with his brother and goes back out to the front room to drop himself on one of the plush couches. His parents had been to this house before, a few summers ago, and once both of their boys were finally back home together for the summer they announced their family vacation plans. With all of the camping trips he’d taken with roommates and the feebly funded trips he’d taken with the soccer club, Minho wholly welcomed this actual vacation.

And even though he should be relaxing, Minho finds himself unable to sit still. The car ride had been a few tiresome hours that he’d mostly slept through – jammed against the window with headphones in his ears – and now, brimming with unexplored territory and the prospect of doing whatever he wants, Minho calls out to his parents that he’s heading out to look around. With a quick assurance that he’s got his phone with him and a swipe of the extra house key, Minho’s out the door.

They’re a bit too outside of town for him to go look around, but with the miles of beach stretching out before him Minho can’t find a lot of effort in him to complain. He ambles down the driveway, warm sunlight cooling in the chilly evening breeze before it hits his face. Minho shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and watches the beginnings of the setting sun mixing watercolor in the clouds.

With a quick check for cars, he crosses the street and stops just before the sandy slope down to the beach, eyes trained on the sky. He takes a deep breath, lets the wind push at his clothes with gentle fingers, and tips his head back. The crash of the waves and the smell of the ocean surround him, wrap him up in a feeling of comfort that he never really felt back in the city. It surprises him almost, how calm he feels in this moment.

And then there’s a sound next to him, a quiet shifting noise and Minho’s eyes snap open.

There’s a boy sitting on the bench just next to Minho, sandals lying abandoned on the ground in front of him, a loose white shirt flapping around his thin frame. He’s got a blond halo surrounding his face, hair looking well and truly sun-bleached in the fiery light, and one leg is pulled up on the bench, his toes curling over the edge. From the look of him, the boy must have been sitting there well before Minho had walked over and he was doing a fair job of pretending that Minho wasn’t there, invading his space.

Minho clears his throat. When the boy turns slightly and catches his eye, he nods in acknowledgement.

“Hey.”

There’s a quiet huff of laughter from the boy. “Hey,” he replies, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his lips as he wraps his arms around his knee.

That’s it.

They don’t say anything more after that; the boy turns back to the ocean and Minho turns back to the sky. The silence is only broken some time later by Minseok sticking his head out of the front door and shouting for Minho to come back in.

“Who were you talking to?” He asks as Minho jogs up the front steps.

Minho throws a brief look back to the boy who was sitting on the bench. At Minseok’s questioning look, he shrugs.

“No one.”

-

So while the beach is a great reprieve from fast life in the city, Minho is still largely a social kind of guy and, with no one to talk to or hang out with aside from his brother, he quickly grows bored. He establishes a routine: get up in morning and go for a run, laze around with Minseok on the sand for a few hours, maybe stop by one of the nearby towns with his mom in the late afternoon, and retire to the couch to watch TV when the weather starts getting chilly at night. It’s fun enough, but Minho can’t shake the restlessness and the need to get out and really _do_ something.

Minho oversleeps one morning – as much as you can when you’re on vacation anyway – and the sun is already shining high in the sky by the time he laces up his shoes and races out the door. There are more people out as his feet pound against the street, a steady, rhythmic thump as Minho greets each pleasantly smiling face through the tinny rumble of the music pouring from his headphones. In just a few days he’s already established a route, so when he misses a turn and forgets to double back until he’s already gone a block past it, he thinks _well, what the hell_ , and keeps going.

The road takes him to a rocky little path surrounded by bushes, fancy looking houses towering on one side. He runs past an elderly couple going for a stroll, a young man walking an enthusiastic dog, a little girl racing away from him on a bright orange bike. It’s nice back here, he thinks, not exactly secluded but just tucked away enough that Minho feels like he’s found his own little place despite the small number of people he’s already seen.

When the bushes taper off, the path opens up a bit and Minho’s surrounded by fields of grass and – are those _goats_ off in the distance? He crosses a small, sturdy wooden bridge and keeps going, the path widening even more until he arrives at a tiny park. Slowing down, Minho circles around the path until his legs are cooled down and takes a seat at one of the picnic tables on the outskirts of the playground. There are no children on the play structure but a young couple plays fetch with their dog in the middle of the grass circle.

Minho watches them, absentmindedly stretching his legs, until movement from the corner of his eye catches his attention. Someone sits down at the table next to Minho’s, his eyes turned down toward his phone, and Minho’s about to turn away when he realizes that it’s the boy he saw the other day, when his family first arrived. He makes a small, involuntary noise of recognition that causes the boy’s head to snap up. His eyes meet Minho’s.

“Oh, hey,” Minho says a bit lamely.

“Hey,” the boy says, that secretive smile hovering over his lips again.

Minho should leave it at that; he should turn away and head back home and stop accidentally bothering this boy at random occasions. He can feel the embarrassment prick at the back of his neck as the boy turns back to his phone, fingers tapping away steadily.

But Minho wants a friend.

His family will still be on vacation for another few weeks, living in that beautiful house just across the street from the ocean, and Minho wants a friend. He’s not particularly used to being alone and he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his trip with only his brother for company. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? Minho makes a fool of himself and come August he’ll be miles and miles away and, if it all goes to hell, he can pretend it never happened. He’ll never have to know if this boy laughed at him and told all his friends about the dork he met at the park and Minho will go on with his life.

It’s just one summer and he wants to take a chance.

Swallowing his nervousness, Minho asks, “do you live here?”

The boy looks up in surprise for a moment before his face melts into a smile. “Yeah,” he says. “But you don’t.”

Minho blinks. “How’d you know?” He asks, earnest and a little impressed. It’s coloring his voice and his face and it must be funny because the boy in front of him breaks out into laughter, his phone now abandoned on the table before him.

“I’ve lived here my whole life, I’d have seen you before,” he explains, once his laughter has subsided. He fixes Minho with a grin. “Plus you’re not nearly tan enough.”

That pulls a laugh out of Minho and he rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Gathering up his courage, he thrusts his hand out. “I’m Minho,” he says steadily.

The boy takes his hand and his grip is sure and strong. “Taemin,” he supplies with another smile.

The sun is warm at Minho’s back.

-

Minho and Taemin had parted shortly after their introduction the day before when Taemin received a call from his mother asking for help with some errands. Taemin had left a little sheepishly, with a quick, “sorry about this” and then he was off. It wasn’t until Taemin had been completely gone from sight that Minho realized he hadn’t asked for Taemin’s number. How were they supposed to be friends if he had no idea how to find the other boy?

As it turns out, Minho doesn’t need to worry about that – he runs into Taemin again the next morning, almost quite literally. He’s out for a run again and takes the path back to the park this time. Minho’s not particularly searching for Taemin or anything, but the run is nice and a family of four let Minho play with their dog for a minute after it gets away from them and nearly barrels him over in an attempt to play.

There’s a light breeze this morning and it pushes Minho’s hair off his face. He feels like he’s flying.

When he rounds the path into the park, he’s planning to head straight for the benches this time. But as he turns, he nearly collides with Taemin who steps out from a small dock that Minho hadn’t noticed the day before. Minho pulls up short, his momentum almost toppling him into Taemin anyway, but he’s able to regain his balance as Taemin takes a surprised step back.

Minho’s breathing hard but there’s a grin on his face as he huffs out, “whoops, sorry!”

He reaches a hand out to steady Taemin who looks up at him with a wry smile and a raised eyebrow. Minho releases his arm, wiping off a slightly sweaty hand on his athletic shorts as Taemin pulls earbuds out of his ears and stuffs them into his pocket.

“Morning, Minho.”

“Good morning. What are you doing out so early today?” He asks, casting a glance around.

“I’m always out this early.” Taemin slips his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “You’re the one who’s early today.”

“No, I usually run at this time,” Minho says as he gestures to his clothes.

“And I usually feed the ducks,” Taemin says with an easy nod to the side.

“Ducks?”

“Yeah,” he says, already beginning to turn. “Come here.”

Taemin leads him towards the dock he just came from and at the end of it there is a pond filled with tall reeds reaching toward the sky and, scattered about the water behind them, ducks. When the ducks see them, they all rush to the strip of land in front of the dock, quacking loudly as they crowd around.

“Here.”

Taemin produces a small bag of something and hands it to Minho.

“What’s this?” He asks, accepting it.

“Sunflower seeds.” Taemin leans his arms against the railing. “Throw some out to them.”

Minho opens the bag and dumps some sunflower seeds into his palm, nervously eyeing the sign posted in front of them on the dock. The ducks are staring expectantly, a few more swimming to the shore as they see movement. He glances over at Taemin, a little unsure, but the boy gestures at him to throw the seeds and so, right in front of the "don't feed the wildlife" sign, Minho does, casting his arm out in an arc over the ducks. They swarm immediately, quacking even more loudly than before. They watch the ducks, Taemin amused and Minho slightly enamored with the sight, until the ducks have finished all the seeds.

“Here,” Taemin says, grabbing the bag. He dumps another pile into Minho’s hands. “I fed them earlier too and they’re gonna get fat and lazy if we keep at like this. Or they’ll get _greedy_.” He addresses the last part directly to the ducks, narrowing his eyes at them.

Without fanfare, Minho tosses the last handful of sunflower seeds over the ducks and they all rush at them again, like they understood that they wouldn’t be getting anymore. Two drakes fight over a seed, pecking and flapping their wings wildly. Minho watches another small black bird swoop in and take the seed from the unsuspecting ducks. Well then.

After approximately four fights have broken out, Minho comments, "wow. Ducks are jerks." He leans against the railing and shakes his head.

"Quack. I'm an asshole, quack." Taemin says casually, arms crossed over the wood and watching the ducks swim aimlessly.

Minho looks at Taemin, surprised for a beat, before he snorts and resettles himself against the rail.

“So, what is there to do out here?” he asks.

Taemin raises an eyebrow at him. “What, bored already?”

With a smile, Minho shakes his head. “Not exactly. But I only just got here and you’re the one who’s a local. I figure that you probably have more ideas than I do.”  
The other boy laughs and turns towards Minho.

“Well,” he says after a moment. “I guess that depends on what you want to do.” At Minho’s nod, he continues. “There’s a couple of towns that are really close, you could even walk to them if you _really_ wanted. And then there’s a few more that are within driving distance. If you wanna stay on the beach, then you can surf or whatever.”

Minho hums, looking out at the ducks. “I’d ask if you could show me around, but I’m not sure if there’s too much you _could_ show me.”

Taemin nods slowly, his cheeks puffed out a little. “Well…”

“What?”

“I could show you the secret spot?”

Minho perks up at that. “Secret spot? What’s that?” He pauses. “Wait. If it’s a secret, then why would you want to show _me_?”

He’s not expecting Taemin to laugh.

“No, no – that’s just what me and my brother called it when we were little! It’s not that secret at all.” He laughs again. “It’s got a great view though.”

The secret spot turns out to be a large log nestled up on the rocks near the ocean. It’s not secret in the slightest and, if Minho’s being honest, there’s nothing particularly special about it either. But they lounge against the smooth wood, the sound of waves wrapping around them, and he’s got to admit Taemin was right – it _is_ a pretty great view.

-

A pounding sound jerks Minho from sleep. He sits up in bed, sheet slipping into his lap, and stares blearily at the wall across the room. There is light _tap tap tap_ and Minho turns his head, staring at his brother’s empty bed before he flops back against his pillows once more. The tapping sound returns in a steady rhythm that lulls him into an almost trancelike state. Just as he’s about to fall back asleep, the window just above his bed rattles a little as the pounding makes a sudden resurgence.

Set into a confused state of panic, Minho flies back up in bed and pulls on the blinds so hard he nearly yanks the cord out of the frame. Taemin’s impatient face meets him on the other side of the glass. Minho shoves the window open and the other boy scoffs.

“It’s about time,” he says, hands on his hips.

“Taemin. What the hell.”

“What?”

“Why didn’t you just knock on the front door?” Minho asks grumpily, still a little disoriented from being pulled so roughly out of sleep.

Taemin shrugs.

“Would you have heard me anyway?”

Minho frowns at him. “Guess not.” He cuts into Taemin’s smug look with, “and anyway – what if I hadn’t even been here? Or what if my brother had?”

A bird screeches somewhere in the sky.

“Then I guess I’d ask for you.”

“Taemin…” he groans.

Minho crosses his arms on the sill of the window, sheet still wrapped haphazardly around his legs. The breeze wafting in feels nice, light and cool as it hits his face. He closes his eyes and figures that if Taemin waited – however long it was – that he could stand to wait a little longer.

“You’ve got bedhead,” Taemin says after a long moment, poking Minho’s forehead through the screen. Minho grumbles and turns his head away.

“It’s cute,” he teases, trying to poke Minho’s cheek this time. Minho grumbles more, burying his face in his arms so that Taemin can’t see the way his face gets warm.

-

The water is just as cold as he remembers – thinks he remembers – from the first time he ever went to the beach.

Minho buries his toes in the sinking wet sand, correcting his balance every time he sinks a little lower, feet uneven under the surf. A few feet away, Taemin’s inadvertently doing the same thing, his feet getting covered with sand each time the tide recedes, as he searches for stones to skip.

“I’ve never been able to do it,” he told Minho.

“Then I’ll teach you,” Minho had said as he’d wrapped an arm around Taemin’s shoulders.

But instead of rocks, Taemin comes back to him with a collection of strange shells.

“Look,” he says, thrusting them in front of Minho’s face.

Minho almost falls in the water, feet still stuck in their little sand hole that has quickly sunk him up to his shins. He grabs Taemin’s arm and the other boy nearly loses all of his shells as he tries to help Minho regain his balance while not losing his own. Twenty seconds of childlike panic later, Minho finally extracts his feet from the sand, beach shorts thankfully clear of sand and dry (for now, at least).

Taemin holds his cupped hands out again. “Here.”

They’re not particularly pretty shells – in fact, Minho would go so far as to call them ugly. Most of them are broken or covered in tiny holes or fractures, and several of them have impressive civilizations of barnacles stuck to them. The lone sand dollar lying in his palm is covered in dry purple fuzz.

“Uh...that’s nice Taem.”

Taemin catches the look on his face and scowls. “You don’t like them, do you?”

He takes a step back, hands raised to try to placate Taemin. “No, I’m just wondering why you didn’t pick any, well.” He pauses, hand waving in a messy circle, trying and failing to think of a nicer way to say it.

“Pretty ones,” he finishes.

He needn’t have worried though; Taemin scoffs and says, “that’s boring. The pretty ones are all anyone ever takes.” He shifts the shells into one hand carefully and bends down, searching for more. “I’ve lived here my whole life, I don’t need any more pretty shells.”

Taemin pulls a piece of petrified wood out of the sand and holds it up. “These are more interesting anyway.” There’s a bright smile on his face as he holds it out in Minho’s direction.

Minho steps forward and turns the wood around in his hands contemplatively. It’s large, spanning nearly the length of his hand, and it’s surprisingly firm and heavy in his grip. It’s smooth though, and Minho runs his thumb along it as he thinks about all of the beautiful shells his mother has laid out along the counter in the backyard that will probably break before they get them home.

“Yeah,” he agrees, looking up. His own smiles grows, unbidden, to match Taemin’s. “You’re right.

-

There’s a huge rock – a mini mountain really – that’s about the only thing Minho can see when he wakes up that morning. The sea fades into the sky and, with the rock as his focal point, he makes his way down to the shoreline and heads towards it. He doesn’t wander aimlessly, but his legs carry him mindlessly in that one direction while his head takes off on its own.

The air is far chillier than it has any right to be during the height of summer at the _beach_ of all places, and Minho curses himself for not bringing a jacket even though he’d been trudging around wrapped up in a blanket while he was still inside. But it’s too late to turn back now and he’s not particularly sure he wants to anyway, goosebumps and frozen nose aside.

He was feeling restless somehow, wanting to move but too lazy to go for a run. Instead, he’s shuffling over the damp sand, sneakers leaving behind clean footprints, the bottoms of his shoes pressed neatly into a trail that leads right to him. They almost look like they could stay there forever, a record stamped into the earth that _Minho was here_ , a reminder for the rest of time. But they’ll be washed away when the tide rises, brushed out of existence by the feet of birds or dogs or other people.

Still, with no one else around, Minho likes to think he’s leaving his own mark on the world.

The rock grows closer the longer he walks and the fog starts to break just enough that he can see the distant outline of house lining the beach off in the distance. When blue sky starts to peek through the gloom, Minho figures he must have been gone for over an hour. Something flashes in his periphery, catching his attention, drawing his eyes and stilling his feet.

About forty feet out, there’s a small, dark head that pops out of the water just in front of a cresting wave; he thinks it might be a sea lion. But then it ducks under, body slipping through the wave like an underwater surfer, and it’s gone. _No problem_ , he thinks, a smile pulling at his mouth as he turns. _It’s time for me to go too_.

-

It’s getting late when Taemin suggests that they dig a pit.

“…Why exactly?” Minho questions with a grin.

“Why not?” Taemin gets on his knees and starts shoveling away with his hands. Their towels and shoes are safely out of sand-flinging range several feet up the beach so Minho turns back to Taemin just in time for him to say, “Maybe we could sleep here tonight.”

Minho joins Taemin in the sand. “I thought we weren’t allowed to do that.”

Taemin makes a dismissive noise and shakes his damp hair out of his face. When Minho nudges him with his shoulder, Taemin gets the hint.

“Okay, so maybe we’re not allowed to, strictly speaking,” he says, his face downturned. But Minho can see the mischief in his eyes anyway. “But I’ve done it loads of times and there’s gonna be fireworks tonight so tons of people will be down here after dark anyway.”

Minho pauses in his digging to look at Taemin. “Fireworks?”

The other boy hums, no other answer forthcoming.

“How come?” Minho prompts.

“I’m not sure, really. It’s just something the city does every year. There’s no reason, I think.”

They keep digging the pit, deepening it as Taemin talks about the year he caught the most crabs ever, widening it as Minho tells Taemin about a camping trip that went fantastically wrong and ended up with Minseok in a cast. When it gets too dark to see, Taemin turns the light on his phone on and props it up against their towels so that they can see. It’s starting to get a little chilly but since Taemin doesn’t say anything, Minho refrains from mentioning it.

The pit is starting to look like a mini swimming pool by the time Taemin declares that it’s finished.

“You sure?” Minho asks, studying it.

Taemin fixes him with a blank look that he interprets as _come on, who’s the expert here?_

They lay their towels out in the damp sand and it _is_ cooler in the pit, but they’re surrounded in darkness with the sound of the waves cushioning them and it’s kind of amazing. Minho taps out a quick message to his dad to let him know that he’s still with Taemin and they’re going to watch the fireworks, he’ll be back later. He adds a silent _maybe_ in his own head.

With no other lights, his screen seems too bright, so Minho slips it into the pocket of his shorts and lays back, stretched out across his towel. Something warm bumps against his arm as Taemin shifts on his own towel next to him. Minho’s breath stutters quietly in his chest for a moment and it’s too dark to see Taemin at all but it’s like Minho can imagine him lying there, clear as day. He crosses his arms over his stomach and listens to the sea.

It’s not long before Taemin starts pointing out constellations to him. Minho’s seen stars before; maybe not this many, but he’s seen them. But there’s something about the way Taemin points them out, lazily ignoring the ones he doesn’t know and rambling off stories about what his grade school teachers had taught him. Together they make up stories for each of the constellations, grand tales more exciting than the ones they’d learned, and even create a few constellations of their own.

Taemin’s laughing at Minho’s brontosaurus constellation and why it symbolizes health and Minho’s gripped with a terrifyingly strong urge to wrap Taemin up in his arms and never let him go. He tries to quell it, listening intently as Taemin earnestly describes the meaning behind his soldier constellation and why it’s different than the warrior.

The feeling burns away strongly in his chest anyway but Minho pretends it’s not there.

The conversation stops mid-sentence at the first crack ringing through the air, Minho’s eyes opening just in time to see the flash of green light up the sky. Taemin looks at him excitedly, his grin as wild as his hair, and Minho has just enough time to see the way his eyes sparkle before the sky goes dark again. But just a minute later, another loud boom sounds and the sky is painted blue, white, and gold for a moment.

Small smatterings of conversations, impressed _ooh_ s and _ahh_ s gather on the edges of Minho’s consciousness. The fireworks display gets into its rhythm and pops and crackles fill the air as light dances above them. They’re so close that when Taemin gives a little shiver, his eyes still trained upwards, Minho can feel it. He hardly thinks before he’s slipping an arm behind Taemin’s head and pulling him close. For his part, Taemin doesn’t seem particularly surprised, just murmurs that _that kind’s my favorite_ when a sparkling gold firework flares through the sky.

Minho’s inclined to think that kind is _his_ favorite too.

It gets colder the longer the fireworks continue. The two of them shuffle close and drape one of the towels over themselves and, when the sky finally stays dark and the chattering around them fades, Taemin stays tucked against Minho’s side and tells him about the two dogs he had when he was younger and all of the lizards he’d found in the garden and tried to keep until his mom had found one of them in the cupboard.

“She screamed so loud,” Taemin chuckles. “It was just sitting on one of the shelves and ran away when she opened it.”

Minho hums, eyes closed as he focuses on the sound of Taemin’s voice and the warmth of his body next to Minho’s.

“I wasn’t allowed to keep any after that. But I still caught them anyway.”

“My brother gave me a lizard tail when I was five,” Minho says.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It was still twitching when he gave it to me.”

Taemin laughs. “Oh no.”

“Yeah,” Minho says darkly. “I cried and ran to my mom and he got grounded for a week.”

“Well,” Taemin says casually, lying his head against Minho’s shoulder. “I can assure you that any and all lizards I give you will be fully intact, tail and all.”  
Minho can’t help himself. He laughs, pulling Taemin to him and keeping him close.

It’s dark and quiet and Taemin is warm. Minho likes to listen to Taemin talk, but he’s happy for them to just listen together too. He’s not really sure when or where the conversation trails off, if they just stop talking or if one of them falls asleep first. But they do sleep there in that little pit they dug and when he wakes up he’s made aware of two things: Taemin is still lying curled up against him and it’s freezing.

Minho can feel a layer of water – the fog and the ocean spray – coating him and freezing him down to his bones. It’s still early. He doesn’t know how he knows this but when he checks his phone, the time shows that it’s barely past six. The sun is rising, brightening the beach enough to have woken him, but it’s hidden enough behind the dense roll of coastal fog that makes the sky look grey and overcast. With a groan, he gently extracts his arm from underneath Taemin’s head. He shakes it out, feeling pins and needles pricking uncomfortably at his fingertips, and looks around.

Predictably, they are the only ones stupid enough to have stayed on the beach overnight. Minho runs a hand through his damp hair, feeling the grimy tangled mess left over, a combination of the day before and the sand that had been blown through it overnight. He desperately needs a shower. Yeah, a hot shower sounds absolutely fantastic.

Taemin rolls over, his hands clutching at hard-packed sand, and Minho decides that they should probably leave now before Taemin dies of hypothermia or something. He pats at Taemin’s cold cheek but the boy doesn’t respond until Minho starts shaking his shoulder.

“What?” He groans, drawing out the word as he turns over once more.

“Come on,” Minho says, shaking him again. “Get up. It’s cold and we need to leave.”

Taemin sticks his face against the towel, deadweight as Minho hauls him up on his feet. He leaves the boy swaying there as he gathers up the wet towels and convinces Taemin to slip back into his flip flops. Taemin leans against Minho heavily, eyes hardly open, and nonsense complaints leak from his mouth the whole walk back up the beach. Minho keeps a steady grip on him as they climb up the path.

He’s not a morning person either, but really.

They’d stayed closer to Minho’s house so he decides it’s easier to bring Taemin back with him than walk him an extra few blocks when Taemin’s feet seem to drag more with every step. He’s practically asleep at Minho’s side already.

Minho unlocks the door quietly, hoping and praying his parents aren’t up yet. He slips off his shoes and pulls Taemin’s off for him as the boy leans against the wall. He briefly contemplates depositing Taemin on the couch but decides against it. Minho’s not sure if his parents knew he didn’t come home last night or not but either way, they probably wouldn’t take too kindly to the surprise of a bedraggled, waterlogged boy lying all over the couch of their rented house. So, back to Minho’s room it is.

After dumping Taemin in his room (as quietly as possible), Minho heads out to the bathroom. The cold has sunken down into his bones, making him shiver even as the  hot water washes over him. The water pressure is low, the spray too wide to really warm him up as much as he’d like, but the hot water running down the back of his neck, the warm steam enveloping the room, all of the grime finally falling out of his hair – it’s heaven. He tries not to take too long, but if he spends an extra five minutes under the spray, well. Who could blame him?

Taemin makes his bed all messy and gross. Minho makes a face when he walks into the room, hair still dripping, to find that Taemin had taken over his bed, his nasty hair rubbed all over Minho’s – previously – clean pillow. _At least he’s on top of the sheets_ , Minho thinks with a sigh.

He looks over at his brother’s bed and catches Minseok’s eye. Minseok raises an eyebrow and Minho just shrugs in response. His brother turns back to his phone and it’s for the best, really, because Minho needs to get Taemin out of his bed and into the shower.

In hindsight, it’s probably a good thing that Minseok had already woken up because, as it turns out, Taemin is really resistant to moving a second time.

By the time he’s finally convinced Taemin to get up and take a shower, Minho’s ready to go back to sleep, himself. He stares forlornly at his bed, sadly taking in the wet spots and the sand scattered about the sheets. Minho really hopes they didn’t track in too much sand. His mom is going to kill him.

“So.”

Minseok’s voice is so casual that it makes Minho turn around in suspicion.

“What?” He asks, eyes narrowed.

“Where were you last night?” The question is a clear double edged sword and there’s a hint of a leer in his voice now that he knows Minho’s back in one piece.  
Minho could spin him a tale, he could make up any sort of lie to make last night dangerous or fantastical or otherworldly. Instead, he tells the truth because it’s easier and Minseok is bound to make his own conclusions no matter what Minho tells him. Sometimes he thinks his brother has an even bigger imagination than he does.

“Me and Taemin watched the fireworks on the beach last night and then we fell asleep.”

Minseok stares at Minho, his eyes boring through Minho so intensely that he’s actually a little taken aback. He blinks, head tilting and face falling into confusion the longer Minseok stares at him. After what must be a full minute, he gives a little nod.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Minho is more than confused.

“Okay,” Minseok repeats. He turns back to his phone and Minho rolls his eyes, deciding that he needs coffee and at least two doughnuts to get through the morning.

Minho leaves a set of clothes out for Taemin in front of the bathroom and Taemin’s helping him strip the bed when his parents wake up. This isn’t the first time they’ve met each other but Taemin is just as polite when he greets them and Minho can’t help but be happy at the way his mother smiles at the boy. Once the sheets are tucked away in the washing machine for later, Minho flops on his bare mattress and complains about wanting doughnuts.

Before Taemin can even open his mouth, Minseok generously offers to make a doughnut run. Minho turns to look at him, eyes squinting in suspicion because this is _very_ rare. But Taemin cheers and Minho’s hungry so he lets Minseok off without a word.

Truthfully, the room is cold in the morning and Minho shrugs on his hoodie, tucking his hands away in the front pocket almost immediately. When he sees Taemin eyeing his brother’s vacant bed, he tosses a spare blanket at him and waves Taemin back over to his side of the room. Minho leans against the wall, Taemin soft against his chest, and their phones are produced once more. Taemin shows him funny videos and Minho shows him pictures of his friends and they are decidedly _not_ cuddling, no matter what it may look like. But with Taemin so close, Minho breathes deeply, smelling his shampoo in Taemin’s hair and his soap on Taemin’s skin, and tries to suppress the distressing tremble that shocks through him.

When Minseok comes back with two boxes of doughnuts, Minho and Taemin take one all for them and park themselves on the floor in front of the television to watch cartoons. The box is halfway empty when the sun finally breaks through the fog and they race each other out the door.

-

Minho walks up the paved incline that leads to the cliff. Taemin has disappeared off somewhere, sprinting off in the dusky light while Minho follows at a much more sedate pace. He’s in no particular rush to get there – he knows Taemin will be waiting for him.

A little boy and his mother amble past with a great big dog and Minho spares them a smile, so used to the friendly nature of everyone, local or vacationer, that’s stopped to say hello to him or offer a smile of their own. It’s different than back home, different from the faces downturned to focused straight ahead and the rushing, bustling, busy nature of a city. It’s nice and he’s going to miss it, but he shoves those unwanted thoughts out of his head as he reaches the top of the cliff.  
There’s a dirt path surrounded by bushes to his right, but Minho ignores it in favor of staring out over the vast expanse of ocean in front of him. It’s cloudy, the sky blending together in a muddled mix of hazy, warm color as the setting sun burns behind it. It’s beautiful and casts a striking orange glow over the tips of the waves. And Minho wants to cringe at the thoughts leaking from his own head because it’s cheesy and cliché, but he feels like he’s on top of the world.

Then he spots Taemin.

There, down on the wooden stairs leading to the stand, Taemin stands on the railing, hands in his pockets, still as a stone. The sun sets him afire like the waves, a glowing golden mist surrounding his lone figure, bracketing him against the crashing waves. Minho’s breath catches in his chest and he watches the other boy until Taemin looks over his shoulder, tossing his head to invite Minho over.

He climbs down from the railing and stands with Minho, and together they point excitedly as they spot the dolphins peeking through the waves further down the coast. But the picture of Taemin on the railing with a fiery glow covering the world sticks with even as they later head back down the street and split off to return to their respective houses.

When Minho walks into his room and sees the jacket Taemin had tossed on his bed and forgotten earlier in the day, he picks it up to move it and, without thinking, brings it up to his face and inhales deeply. It smells like the ocean spray and something in Minho's heart clenches, stuttering unevenly.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s midafternoon, Taemin hasn’t stopped by yet, and Minho still doesn’t know his number. (He really should get around to that one of these days.)

As Taemin hadn’t indicated the day before that he wouldn’t be coming around, Minho’s got an antsy feeling working at the back of his head. He’s not worried or anything – what would there be to even be worried about? – but, just like the first few days after he’d first arrived, Minho is bored. _Very_ bored.

So instead of waiting around, listening to the television that had been left on in the other room while his mom and dad had gone out for a walk on the beach, he decides to be proactive and actually do something about it. He’s pretty sure he remembers where Taemin lives, so he jams his feet into his sneakers and locks the door behind him.

The walk itself isn’t very long, less than ten minutes, and the weather is keeping to its usual trend of being all sunshine and bright blue skies, temperate and beautiful. The wind ruffles his hair as he walks and Minho pictures himself like this, walking with the ocean in view, every day of his life. He has to admit, it sounds pretty great. He can hear children laughing and shouting as they run through the sand and in the distance there’s a person flying a vibrantly colored kite. The sun pushes at his back, urging him along gently.

As it turns out, he recognizes Taemin’s house the minute he sees it. When he knocks on the door, it’s Taemin’s mom who answers with a smile. She invites him in, leading him through the house as she explains, “I think he went out to get something, but he should be back soon.” She shows him Taemin’s room and tells him that he’s welcome to wait there and that she’ll “be in the living room if you need anything, dear. Just give me a shout.”

Taemin’s mom is pretty cool.

He pushes open the door and walks into the half dark room. Minho’s eyes sweep across the room as the door clicks shut behind him but it’s too dark to really see anything. His hand is near the light switch when a shadow shifts near the half closed blinds.

“’Sup?”

Minho stumbles, banging into the door in surprise, and the light catches the side of Taemin’s face.

“Jesus, Taemin,” he says, walking forward. His hand is hovering over his racing heart, trying to get it to calm down. “You scared the shit out of me.”

Taemin laughs, light and easy, rolling his shoulders in a lazy shrug. He’s on his bed, leaning against the wall next to the window. The sunlight glints off his hair and makes it shine like golden thread.

A smile is creeping at the corners of Minho’s mouth. “What are you sitting in the dark for anyway?” He sits on the bed, fixing Taemin with a teasing look.

“Didn’t feel like moving,” Taemin says.

“Oh?”

Minho shifts, about to get up to turn on the light for him when Taemin’s hand wraps around his arm, just above the elbow. His fingers are hot.

“No, leave it,” he says. “I like it better this way.”

Minho makes a soft noise in response and settles back further on the bed, not quite next to Taemin, but close enough. He still can’t see perfectly, but his eyes have adjusted to the light enough that he can see Taemin’s laptop on the desk across the room, screen dark, and the pile of folded clothes stacked on the chair in front of it. His walls are mostly free of anything (unlike Minho, whose walls are heaped with posters and photographs and schedules) except for a small area above the head of his bed that looks like the start of a mini collage. Minho can’t make out what any of the images are.

He likes Taemin’s room, he decides. Even if he can’t see it very well yet, he likes it anyway.

“So what brings you here?” Taemin’s head rolls on his shoulders so he can look at Minho.

“You weren’t around and I got bored,” he answers honestly.

Taemin snickers at him and maybe Minho should feel slighted at that but he doesn’t really. In retaliation, he falls back on the bed, sprawled out like it’s his own. His head is just shy of the pillow.

“So – what? You just barge into my home and expect me to be entertainment?”

Minho gasps. “That’s not what you’re here for?” He asks incredulously.

Taemin digs into Minho’s ribs with his toes, jabbing lightly and repeatedly just to be annoying. Minho thinks about ignoring him until Taemin’s starts wiggling them around, trying to illicit a reaction. His feet are ceremoniously grabbed and Minho sits up, pulls Taemin from the wall so that he can trap Taemin’s arms against his sides. It’s all Taemin’s fault; he has instigated a tickle fight which they both know Minho is going to win, but Taemin is pretending to be shocked about it anyway.  
The younger boy is thin and slippery, wriggling out of Minho’s grasp at every opportunity he steals, but Minho has height, weight, and strength on his side and the victor of the battle is unquestionable. Minho knocks Taemin over, the bed giving a lurch as it shifts with their momentum, and Taemin is completely trapped beneath Minho, legs locked and arms barricaded.

“Cheater, cheater!” He screeches happily, his head thrashing left and right and making absolutely no difference whatsoever.

Minho shifts, holding Taemin down with one arm so that he can use his hand to poke Taemin in the cheek.

“Admit defeat,” he jeers.

Poke.

“Never!” Taemin squirms more.

“You can never win against me!” Minho cries triumphantly. Poke, poke.

Taemin’s head comes up off the bed and he nearly head butts Minho right in the nose. Minho lurches back with an affronted “hey!” but he’s not about to let Taemin win this; he dives forward again and hooks his chin over Taemin’s shoulder, face practically buried in the sheets, and turns his head to bracket the back of it against Taemin’s cheek. He pushes back just slightly, rendering Taemin wholly and completely immobile.

There is a long pause where the two of them catch their breath; Minho can feel Taemin’s heartbeat beneath his, strong and steady.

“I win,” he says quietly. Taemin lets out a small huff and his head knocks against Minho’s as he relaxes.

Minho pokes Taemin’s cheek once more before he loosens his hold so that Taemin is free again. But Minho himself doesn’t feel the need to move so instead he lies there on top of Taemin, shifting a bit so that he’s not crushing the smaller boy.

Taemin doesn’t ask him to move, so he doesn’t. His face is still mostly pressed into the sheets and he can smell Taemin on them, musky and soft, and he takes a breath, his body unwinding. It occurs to him, distantly, that he could smell Taemin if he just turned his head the other way. With a small sound, Taemin frees his arms from where they were trapped at his sides and they fall onto the bed beside Minho’s.

The light filtering in through the gaps in the blinds reveals the constellations of dust floating through the air, creating their own universe in Taemin’s bedroom. Minho studies the bedside drawer with its chipped edges and small collection of bits and bobs scattered on top before his eyes drift over to the half open closet and the mess threatening to spill out of it. There’s a skateboard in the corner of the room and a calendar tacked up to the back of the door. This is where Taemin grew up, this is where he lives.

Minho can feel the sigh before he hears it, can feel the way Taemin’s chest rises before the soft exhalation tickles through the hair at the back of his head.

“Hey,” Taemin says, one hand coming up to prod at the center of Minho’s back. “You’re really heavy, you know.”

Minho grunts and rolls off of Taemin and they both shift, knees and elbows knocking, until they settle side by side on the narrow bed.

“What are you gonna do when you go back home?” Taemin asks and it hits Minho with such force when he realizes they’ve never really acknowledged that all of this – _this_ – will only last for the summer.

He doesn’t really want to think about it.

He knows that it’s not just because he doesn’t have a plan for after, but he doesn’t want to think about that either.

Minho shrugs, the action bunching up his shirt around his neck a little. He can see Taemin glance at him from the corner of his eye and maybe he can sense that Minho doesn’t want to talk about it, maybe he can’t, but he drops the subject. Instead, when a motorcycle roars past, somewhere far, far down the street, Taemin tells him about the time his older brother got a motorcycle and Taemin tried to ride it. Minho listens carefully, the story painting a picture in his head as Taemin talks.

They trade anecdotes, learning about each other through funny stories and complaints and half-forgotten memories. And Minho thinks about what it would be like to have known Taemin all his life. He’s learning more about him every day, about this boy he only met a few weeks ago, and still it seems as if he was there through it all.

Taemin’s voice trails off and he breathes deeply. He must be getting sleepy from the dark and the heat and the quiet, and Minho feels a yawn building deep in his chest.

He stares at the ceiling until his eyes cross and then slip closed. There are tinny clinking sounds coming from somewhere beyond the door and Minho thinks that Taemin’s mother must be in the kitchen, maybe making dinner or something. He pretends for a moment that he’s known Taemin long enough that he wouldn’t even need to ask, wouldn’t need to be invited to stay for dinner, and he wonders what it would be like if he had a spot at the table like he was meant to be there.

Taemin’s mom invites him to stay for dinner and Minho accepts. His stomach does a little flip but he figures he must just be hungry. The food is delicious.

-

Taemin’s uncle dropped off his van some time earlier in the summer, way before Minho had even stepped foot on the beach that sunny, windy day weeks ago. It’s an old van, one of those roundish, bus-like 70’s contraptions from days of old and it’s been sitting parked against the curb a little ways down the road since. Truthfully, it’s probably an eyesore to Taemin’s neighbors but Taemin has assured them that his family would be taking it out for a camping trip when the weather turns cooler. Minho eyes the rusting bumpers and the crooked mirrors suspiciously but holds his tongue when Taemin urges him to climb atop it and sit beside him.

The sun is warm and the breeze is pleasant and Minho’s heels tap against the large front window as they watch the tiny specks of beachgoers frolicking down on the sand. Taemin leans back on his hands and Minho follows his lead, trying not to stare too hard at their hands next to each other on the rippled surface of the van. He’s darker now, darker than he was when he first arrived, darker even than Taemin who’s spent his life under this sun, and he can’t stop the flicker of excitement at that, at being Taemin’s equal in this way. It’s silly, it’s childish, it’s absurd even, but he figures he could maybe even pass for a local now and it stirs something inside him.

Beside him, Taemin tilts his face towards the sky, eyes closed, and Minho smiles.

-

Taemin decides one day that it’s imperative that he teach Minho how to catch crabs. So they grab a bucket and head out to the rocks and it’s not as far as Minho would have thought but they still have to climb over a cropping of large rocks, past the “secret” spot. Luckily the tide is low  - _Taemin must have known_ , Minho reasons – because the rocks that Taemin leads him to have small pools of water filling the sunken spaces and Minho knows that if they stay too long, the waves will start lapping at their feet. Looking back the way they came, it might even be difficult to get back if the sea rises too high.

There’s an impatient tug on his hand and then Taemin’s pulling him the last little bit to get to the rocks. He doesn’t see anything at first, but he crouches down next to Taemin and peers down into the gaps between the rocks. Then he sees them.

In a large crevice, Minho can see at least five small crabs, the one closest to him bubbling away wildly.

Taemin waddles off to a shallow tide pool nearby, still crouching, and unceremoniously sticks his hand into the water. After a moment where his hand circles around, chasing something, he pulls out a crab by the front claw and cups his hands around it. Duck walking back over to Minho, he opens his palm and displays the tiny crab to Minho. It can’t be much larger than a coin and it sits still in the middle of Taemin’s hand until it sprints quickly off the side and plummets to the ground, skittering to safety in the rocks.

With a snort, Taemin leaves it be and heads around to the other side of the rocks, hunching down once more. Holding up the stick they’d found along the way that Taemin had assured him would be important, Minho tries to follow his lead.

-

By the end of the day, neither of them will remember whose idea it was in the first place, but they walk to the pier. It’s foggy and Minho can’t see the rock at all when he leaves his house. Taemin is waiting for him across the street, sitting in front of the path down to the beach on the same bench he was when they first met. He doesn’t see Minho at first, his eyes trained out on the sea that’s not visible through the thick cloud of fog obscuring it.

Taemin jumps when Minho’s hand lands on his shoulder and he brushes Minho off, shoving him when Minho laughs. But he can see the smile Taemin’s fighting not to show and he ruffles the boy’s hair before they start off down the path.

It’s cold; they both have jackets on, doing little to combat the cold as they stubbornly continue wearing shorts and flip flops, their feet getting coated with wet sand as they walk along the shore. It’s so foggy it practically looks like it’s going to rain despite Taemin’s vehement reassurances that _it will absolutely_ not _rain, trust me on this, Minho_. He zips his jacket up and shoves his hands in his pockets anyway and it’s not long before he sees Taemin do the same.

They decide to walk all the way there. That becomes another point of debate later on, when they can’t remember who suggested it and who agreed first, but in the end it doesn’t really matter much. They’re out in the early morning and they have a mission to accomplish. Minho’s never been one to back down and Taemin’s a firecracker in his own right, so when they’ve made up their minds, that’s it.

The wind whips at their faces and Minho’s sure he’s going to look like a complete mess by the time they get to the pier, much less when he returns home that night. It’s the windiest it’s ever been while he’s been here, the cold spray from the ocean bites at his cheeks and Minho swears he can see his breath. It’s amazing how grey everything looks – the sky, the water, the air in front of them. The sand even seems grey-tinged in the fog-coated light. It’s such a contrast to all the color that happens during the day – that’ll happen later if the fog ever decides to clear.

Gone is the bright blue sky and the golden sand, the deep blue ocean, the rocks, the grass, the clouds. All of it is grey. But Taemin beside him is the one shining beacon of color, a pop of life in the hazy surroundings. He is gold hair and tan skin, blue jacket on a white shirt and grey shorts. It’s almost shocking how bright he is, how much of a contrast he makes to everything around him, and Minho keeps stealing glances.

For his effort, Taemin never notices. He’s quiet for once, the headphones around his neck quietly blaring something that Minho can’t quite make out. It’s fine like this though. He can’t exactly say the weather’s nice, not when it’s like this and his nose is making subtle threats of breaking off, but there’s something about the two of them making this trek all the way out to the pier that feels like it will be worth it anyway.

Maybe.

(Hopefully.)

It’s miles away and Minho knows it’s going to take them a while, but he’s okay with that for right now.

The sun is making feeble (failing) attempts to break through the fog by the time they finally get to the pier. Predictably, there aren’t many people around and Minho has to wonder if the trip was _really_ worth it until Taemin drags him to the cookie shop. Well, it’s warm inside and a few cookies never hurt anyone. (And if Taemin charms the shopkeepers into giving him an extra sample, well, who is Minho to blame them really?)

They stop by the candy shop too, just for good measure.

They’re at a standstill on what to do next when the sky gives a worrying rumble and, completely without regard for anyone or anything, begins to pour rain. Hot rain. Big, fat drops of rain that hit with an impact and pound on Minho’s head as he pushes Taemin across the street to get under an overhang. Around them, the other people milling about are similarly spurred into action and Minho, soaking wet already, turns to look at the boy next to him.

Taemin’s bangs drip water into his face and he shoves Minho when he laughs.

Deciding to at least _try_ to be as dry as he possibly can, Minho abandons his soggy jacket and wrings it out, Taemin following suit. Seeing as how they still need to make their way all the way _back_ to their houses, they enter a corner store (more of a surf shop, really, but they’ll take what they can get) in search of an umbrella. It takes ten minutes and help from one of the people behind the register before they’re able to locate a single flimsy black one, but it’s better than nothing.

The rain is still absolutely pouring when they exit the shop but they would have been silly to expect anything else. Taemin’s arm is warm against Minho’s cold back as they hurry down the street, laughing and making fools of themselves as they try not to slip in their wet shoes, pressed together underneath the umbrella.

Halfway back, the rain slows and finally stops, but the damage is done. Minho is shivering in his tank top, his jacket still damp and cold, and Taemin is in a similar state. But then Taemin’s teasing him, hurling himself forward when Minho goes to tickle him, sprinting away with his laughter trailing behind him. Minho folds down the umbrella and goes chasing after them and there’s no way they can keep this up all the way home but Taemin may be determined to try – Minho’s just got to catch him first. The wind is whipping past him and it’s freezing but Minho can’t think of anything but grabbing onto Taemin’s hand and running next to him.

Taemin’s completely wrong – it rained. (But, to be fair, Minho doesn’t think he minds it in the slightest.)

-

His parents have noticed how he’s out for most of the day, Minseok keeps asking after Taemin with a knowing smirk that drives Minho crazy – even Taemin’s mom has started to act as if him and Taemin being together is fact rather than choice. It’s not like Minho is bothered by it. The two of them became friends quickly and Minho’s not shy about the fact that he’d rather be out with Taemin on the rocks or getting knocked over by the surf or going into town to search through weird antique stores than lying around at the house wasting his summer. Taemin, too, finally has something new and different to do for the summer and Minho’s not going to let that slip away if he can help it.

The problem is just the way everyone’s acting about it, as if they know some sort of secret that Minho’s not privy to, like he’s not allowed in on whatever those silly little smiles mean, or why everyone’s voices seem to go saccharine when they say goodbye to the two of them. He figures he probably shouldn’t worry about it too much, but he can’t shake off the feeling that he’s missing something. (And it feels like something important.)

Taemin’s waiting for him at the secret spot, lunch all wrapped up in the bundle of his towel like some sort of vagrant traveler. Minho’s got his own food stored inside a bucket and he might have gotten a few weird looks walking down the beach, but he’s not really bothered. He’s here now anyway. Taemin hops up when he sees Minho and they walk further down the shoreline, stopping only to play with a wet dog that seems to have taken a liking to Taemin. By the time it runs off, Taemin’s started up another story about the summer they had _so many jellyfish – I mean, really, Minho. You wouldn’t have believed it, there were so many_.

They’re not to the pier yet (maybe they never had any intention of going at all) but they pick a spot in the sand and sit down, Taemin’s towel becoming their blanket. Minho can see himself reflected in Taemin’s sunglasses, can see his smile and the way the wind and the sea spray has made his hair all curly. When Taemin kicks off his shoes and his feet rest in the sand beside Minho’s, it’s with a start that Minho realizes his skin is as tough as Taemin’s, his feet worn and sand-smoothed just like the other boy’s. Weeks ago when he’d first arrived, the rocks and sand and water had attacked his poor, untouched feet, too used to a life stuffed in shoes – a true vacationer. But now their feet rest next to each other’s and it’s almost as if Minho had lived his whole life here, right with Taemin.

The thought makes him smile and when Taemin asks what’s so funny, Minho just takes a bite of his sandwich and shakes his head.

-

The antique shops are probably Minho’s favorite part of going into town. His parents like the art galleries, and Minseok tends to stay around the surf shops, but Minho – he likes the odds and ends he can find in the dusty old shops. He’d only gotten a peek of them when they first got into town but when Taemin grouses about what to do one day, Minho steals his chance.

He convinces his parents to drive them all into town and his dad plays old music while his mom sings along. Taemin is squished into the backseat in-between Minho and Minseok and is being subjected to sly taunts from Minseok. Minho tries to steadily ignore his brother, taking Taemin’s attention away with the lure of his phone; it’s easy enough to let everything else fade into the background when Taemin’s knee is solidly pressed against his own.

They all split off on their own almost immediately, Taemin dragging Minho to his favorite antique shop a ways down the road and around the corner. A large stuffed bear outside the door greets them and Minho high fives its raised paw as they walk into the shop. The store is brighter than the ones in the town over but more labyrinthine he soon finds out, as they wind through different rows and room. Minho quickly becomes lost but it doesn’t really matter because Taemin seems to know exactly where he’s going.

“Hey,” Minho says turning around. “What do you think about this?”

When Taemin turns around, he lifts the stuffed duck lamp for the other boy to see. Taemin sets a jar of old buttons down on the shelf and inches forward, eyes wide.

“Woah,” he breathes, blinking rapidly. He looks up at Minho, mouth still slightly open. “This is hideous.”

Minho’s laugh is inappropriately loud and he ducks behind a shelf of typewriters to hide as he tries to catch his breath.

An old teddy bear sticks its head around the corner, far too close to Minho’s face. He can smell the dust on it, that old, musty smell of something sitting stagnant in a room for too long. With a grimace he pulls back, only for the bear to come closer.

“What’s wrong, Minho?” asks a squeaky voice, the bear jiggling in time.

“Ugh, Taemin.” Minho bats at the bear with a laugh but it comes closer again.

“Love me, Minho. Love meeee.”

The bear is thrust closer and for one frightening moment Minho thinks it will come into contact with his face. He shuffles back, losing his balance and nearly upending a small table of glassware.

“Be careful, Minho!” The bear squeaks.

“Yeah,” Taemin says, stepping into view and holding a hand out. “If you break something you’ll have to pay for it.”

He tries to keep his face neutrally pleasant but Minho catches the smirk curling at the corner of his mouth. Grabbing Taemin’s hand, Minho hoists himself up and pulls Taemin into a headlock.

They stop into another antique store a few shops down before meeting back up with the rest of Minho’s family. He’s laden down with a bag of purchases – an old soccer jersey that he bought for himself and a pair of glass salt and pepper shakers in the shape of elephants that Taemin (somehow) managed to convince him to buy. Minho shakes his head, trying to dispel Taemin’s ridiculous puppy eyes and teasing voice, but there’s a smile on his face anyway.

_No matter, though_ , he thinks. He goaded Taemin into buying an old leather wallet and it hadn’t even been all that hard.

When Taemin sleeps over that night – for no reason other than to play scary videos games – he convinces Minho to sleep out on the day bed with him instead of going back to his room and leaving Taemin alone.

“I’m not scared,” he’d insisted. “But you might be.”

The challenging leer he’d given Minho had been enough to convince him. Taemin takes the bottom roll out bed – “because you’re smaller,” Minho says, raising an eyebrow – and Minho takes the main bed that gives terrible, squeaky creaking noises with the slightest movement. And despite the lack of privacy in the open room, they talk well into the night, quiet whispers drifting up and down between them.

In the morning, Minho wakes up to the bustle of his parents in the living room. When Taemin wakes up not long after, he shuffles into the kitchen, wrapped in a blanket that tangles around his legs, making him waddle around the room after Minho, all messy haired and bleary eyed, squinting as Minho makes coffee for him.

-

The only time Minho ever has trouble falling asleep is when it’s really hot. One time, way back when he was in middle school there was a night where he was struck with terrible insomnia: the air conditioner had broken right at the peak of summer and young Minho, exhausted and frustrated, had been unable to fall asleep for almost two days. It had never been that bad since – he always kept a fan in his room after that. Just in case – but occasionally the temperature would rise too high and he’d be left lying in his bed, sweaty and unable to fall asleep.

It had only ever been because of the heat.

But tonight was not particularly hot, in fact, it was actually quite chilly. Minho was bundled up under his covers, hood up over his head, and by all accounts he should be sound asleep like his brother is. Minho looks over to the bed across from his and scowls, sticking his tongue out childishly because it’s dark and he’s been trying to sleep for two hours.

He pulls out his phone and scrolls endlessly, watches a few videos until the light starts getting to his head, sleep pounding at his brain. But that’s the problem isn’t it? There’s something niggling at the back of his mind, prodding at him to try and get him to notice but he just _cannot_ figure out what it is. It’s like leaving the house and feeling like he’s forgotten something only to reach into his pocket hours later and find he’s left his wallet behind. Minho rubs his head angrily against the pillow in spite.

For some reason, though, Minho’s thoughts always seem to circle back to Taemin. The idea makes his insides squirm in embarrassment, but logically he knows it must be because he and Taemin have been spending all their time together. It must be. Obviously. Even so, the boy’s blond hair, his smile, the way he laughs with his face all screwed up and his head thrown back, how he held out his hand to help pull Minho up the steep rocks – it all swirls in Minho’s head like some sort of art project gone wrong.

And even though it’s cool in the room, he feels like he’s overheating, shaking so hard inside that there’s sparks flying around his ribcage trying to catch fire like his heart is kindling. He could kick off his covers but that’s not the problem, not really. So, instead he stares at the ceiling and watches the shadows morph into a giant blob as he thinks about beach. If he tries hard enough, he can almost imagine the sound of the waves, he can almost hear it. Almost.

But almost isn’t good enough. With a quick glance at his brother, still sleeping, Minho unlatches the window and opens it. Cool wind floats in and hits Minho’s face and he lets out a relieved sigh. He lies back down, finally relaxing. The window’s barely open; just a crack, just enough that can hear the waves crash and the wind blow.

Somehow, it sounds like Taemin’s voice.

-

(Minseok yells at him in the morning for having opened the window, but Minho’s never slept so well.)

-

The seagulls wake him up, loud and squawking and entirely unpleasant to his sleep clogged ears. A little yappy dog's barking starts up and joins the cacophony ringing dully through the room. Minho buries his head under his pillow with a pitiful groan.

When it becomes apparent that the noise isn’t going to just go away no matter how much he wishes, pleads, and prays, Minho’s arms relinquish their position of protecting his ears and they flop onto the bedcovers with a resounding thump. He lies there weakly, mind slogging around until it picks up on a little whispered thread of _Taemin_ and slams into a whirring, stuttering overdrive. Minho runs his fingertips over the blankets as he resigns and allows his heart to thud happily in his chest, Taemin’s smile flitting through his thoughts.

The hems of his sweatpants are hooked over the bottom of his feet as he shuffles into the kitchen, the floor a cold shock from the carpet in the hallway.  
Taemin stops by not long after Minho’s gotten dressed and immediately pulls him out the door.

“Where are we going?” he asks, amused.

Taemin looks back at him like he’s stupid. “My house.” The unspoken _duh_ is implicit.

They waste no time in circling around Taemin’s house to the backyard and ascending the ladder propped up against the side of the house. It’s not until they’ve settled themselves onto a flat strip of the roof that Minho realizes he has no idea what they’re actually doing.

As if reading his mind, Taemin pulls up a small bag from near him. He must have brought them up earlier because Minho can’t remember him having them before, but he has no time to wonder because when Taemin pulls out a pair of binoculars more questions race through his head.

“Tada!”

Minho gives him a confused smile. “What are we doing exactly?”

“Whale watching,” Taemin says as he settles himself more comfortable against the roof.

And though they’d often spotted animals on the fly, it hadn’t occurred to Minho that they might actually proactively look for them.

“Oh. Yeah.” Minho copies him, back resting against a sloped part of the roof. “Of course.”

Taemin takes the first watch, telling Minho about all of the animals that pass through this part of the ocean in the summer. And when Minho takes the binoculars, resting his elbows against his knees, Taemin talks about how much he hates having to share a room with his brother when any of his relatives come to visit.

“He snores and talks in his sleep,” Taemin says, flopping on his stomach. His face is creased in a frown as he rolls dirt clods off the edge of roofing.

Minho’s about to nod in solidarity when he catches something out of the edge of the binoculars. He makes a small noise that has Taemin sitting up, excitedly asking “what? What? Did you see something?”

“Hold on,” Minho murmurs, scanning the horizon more diligently now.

And there it is – the water glinting off of a dark back.

“Whale!” He says triumphantly, scanning again to see if he can find one.

He and Taemin trade the binoculars back and forth until Taemin spots a splash that even Minho, without any aid, can see from their spot.

“I think it’s a baby,” Taemin says, passing the binoculars back so Minho can see. “It’s tail was coming out of the water.”

Minho finds the whale, still splashing around and makes an appropriately awed sound when –

“Oh wow,” Taemin breathes. Minho can only agree.

The whale starts slapping its tail against the surface of the water, spinning in a circle as it moves. Minho lowers the binoculars and turns to find Taemin already looking at him, excitement clearly radiating from him. They can hear the sound from where they’re sitting and Minho feels a sense of wonder rush through him.

-

The sky is tinted pink and purple as the waves darken in front of them. Minho lounges back against the log in the secret spot – _their_ secret spot now – stretching back until he’s laid out fully, one leg pulled up, the other dangling lazily, hands cushioned behind his head. With his eyes closed, he listens to the waves lapping and crashing, children laughing to one side, a dog barking happily off to the other. In front of him, Taemin leans against a branch on the log, eyes trained on the ocean. _Like always_ , Minho thinks, a slow smile forming on his lips.

The tide is rising, already had been by the time they arrived, and it won’t be long before they’ll have to head back or risk getting their feet wet. But Minho’s too content to move and the sun hasn’t finished setting yet so he thinks they have time. And, knowing Taemin, even if they don’t, he’ll make time.

Minho’s mind drifts as they exist in silence, just taking in the sound of the waves. He thinks back to yesterday when his ice cream had melted all over his hands, and to last month when Taemin thought he’d seen a snake near the cliff, and to a few weeks ago when they’d gone to feed the ducks.

Their bag had been nearly emptied when they’d heard, “Hey! What are you kids doing?”

And Taemin’s hand had wrapped around Minho’s wrist and he’d pulled him, the two of them stumbling off the little wooden dock and back down to the dirt path, sprinting through the streets in the fading light as Taemin’s laughter had rung out in front of him, clear as a bell.

The memory elicits a smile from Minho and he cracks his eyes open, looking at Taemin. The other boy hasn’t moved and he doesn’t notice as Minho continues to watch him, mind trying to piece everything together. The summer has felt like a whirlwind and he’s not ready to let it go yet, still itching for something.

Taemin smells like ocean sunshine, bottled up in a bright, blond haired boy; his sun faded hair glints in the light and the sound of his laughter floats like a melody on the wind.

He thinks he might love Taemin like he loves the ocean, like Taemin loves the ocean. Because in the time they’ve spent together, the two have become almost synonymous in Minho’s mind and while it should scare him, mostly it just makes him feel a little fluttery. Minho thinks back to the city he grew up in, fast and loud and rising up on all sides, and looks out to the ocean that Taemin was born from. He really wants to hold Taemin's hand.

It’s just one summer and he wants to take a chance.

“Hey,” he says softly, sitting up and scooting closer.

Taemin hums, eyes still on the water.

“What’s going to happen when I leave?”

And even though his voice is still quiet, Taemin hears him loud and clear, turning around at last to look at Minho. His hand is right next to Minho’s and Minho can hardly stand it.

“What do you mean?”

“Well…”

Minho scratches his head and looks down. This is the hard part. This is the part that he hadn’t really thought through properly and he’s here already without really realizing it. The thing is, Taemin’s going to be the one holding all the power (and maybe he had it all along, Minho wouldn’t really doubt it) and Minho doesn’t really want to spend the time thinking of all the _what ifs_ and _could bes_ anymore.

“I’m going to be leaving,” he says finally, looking up. “So what’s going to happen with us?”

His fingers bridge the gap, inching forward to twist into Taemin’s and hold on.

The implications of it all is screaming in Minho’s face, the intention obvious. It’s not a question of _will you keep in touch_ or _will you miss me? Because I’ll miss hanging out with you every day even though we do the same damn thing every time, but it’s fun because it’s with_ you. He doesn’t want to lose Taemin’s friendship, but suddenly the decision isn’t in his hands anymore; the ball is in Taemin’s court and he regards Minho calmly, his hair shifting in the breeze.

“Well,” Taemin says, looking away for a moment. “Whatever it is, I hope you won’t forget about me because I really like you and that would be a total bummer.”

He looks back at Minho, his mouth twisted in an embarrassed smile that doesn’t hide the light in his eyes. His fingers slip properly into place with Minho’s, their palms pressed together.

_Oh_ , Minho thinks as everything slots into place and "oh," he breathes as his fingers tighten around Taemin's.

Minho laughs, the sound trickling happily from his mouth as he looks up at Taemin.

“Yeah, I can do that.”

_I can definitely do that_.

-

Taemin is there, of course he is, when Minho’s dad loads the last suitcase into the trunk of the car. The two of them are standing off to the side, waiting for Minho’s mom and Minseok to complete their inspection of the house to make sure they won’t leave anything behind.

“So,” Taemin says, rocking on his feet, hands curled loosely in the hem of his shirt and tucked under the fabric.

“So,” Minho agrees.

Taemin tilts his head back a little, looking up at Minho. “I figure it’s about time you ask me for my number.”

And Minho laughs, shoving Taemin and knocking him off balance.

“Hey! Be nice or I won’t give it to you!” Taemin threatens above Minho’s laughter.

“Okay, okay,” he acquiesces and then clears his throat as he stands a little straighter. “Taemin,” he says in a grave voice. “Will you give me your number?”

Taemin snorts at him but motions for Minho to hand him his phone. They swap back after and, completely unnecessarily, a streak of giddiness flares through Minho when he sees Taemin’s name on his screen.

Minho’s mom and Minseok come back outside and the house is locked up for the last time. All at once, Minho is swept up in sentimentality and he hugs Taemin tightly, only slightly embarrassed that his family might be watching. But Taemin’s arms come up strong around his waist and Minho forgets all about it, breathing Taemin in one more time.

When they pull back, Taemin asks, eyes shining brightly, “are you coming back next summer?”

Minho laughs, throwing an arm around Taemin’s shoulders. “Yeah,” he says, smiling. “We’re coming back next year.”

“Good,” Taemin says decisively.

And then, from the car, Minseok crows at them, “you gonna kiss now?”

Minho shouts at his brother, grumbling under his breath as Taemin laughs. Throwing caution to the wind, Minho leans in and swiftly kisses Taemin’s cheek and he’s rewarded with that mischievous smile of Taemin’s that he’s grown so used to.

When Minho’s family has piled into the car and they’re pulling out of the driveway, Minho turns around to wave at Taemin one more time. Taemin, off on the side of the road, raises his hand and waves back. Then, he’s curling his other hand into a fist and holding it up next to his ear, mouthing _call me_ to Minho with an impish smile.

Minho laughs. He can’t wait until next summer.


End file.
